


if i lead would you follow

by BloodRedCarnation



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aged-Up Haruno Sakura, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Community: kakasaku, F/M, Fake seduction, Idiots in Love, Lapdance, Pole Dancing, mild exhibitionism, sexy with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29767773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodRedCarnation/pseuds/BloodRedCarnation
Summary: During the time Kakashi spent mourning the future loss of the easy banter he had with Sakura, the reckoning herself had graciously left the stage with light steps and had begun walking towards him at a sedate pace.“Hey, pretty boy, come here often?”(Or, Kakashi is sent to investigate a string of crimes happening to a certain strip club’s dancers. Sakura just happens to work there.)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 50





	if i lead would you follow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaegerenthusiast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegerenthusiast/gifts).



> This fic was written as an early gift for my favorite birthday girl. Marina, hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Disclaimer: I have no idea how pole dance works, but neither does Kakashi, so.

Jiraiya leans over the alley wall, not entering yet, simply taking his time to analyze Kakashi’s expression from his single exposed eye. “Ready to learn more about the setting that inspired _Icha Icha Authority_?”

In any other circumstance, Kakashi would have been hard-pressed to deny. Given the recent events, however, he simply nods, refraining from pointing out they are actually standing in front of that particular strip club not because Jiraiya is granting him an exclusive tour on the real-life locations mentioned in his books, but because there had been three deaths just in the past week and they had been assigned to investigate them. 

Well, to be fair, _Kakashi_ had been assigned to investigate them and meet their inside contact. Jiraiya had simply tagged along because he had spent enough time at the club for the cover he provided as a patron to be inconspicuous enough. After all, the contact they were meeting was, in fact, a dancer.

Kakashi supposed this ability to blend in and not alert whoever it was they were looking for was another point in favor of the _Icha Icha_ series. Not that he and Genma had a long withstanding argument about the merits of reading and writing erotica or anything like that.

“Lead the way.”

Jiraiya smiles, all too happy to be of service. Without missing a beat, he walks up to the dancer greeting patrons by the door, “ _Oh~_ , hello beauty, what is it that you are hiding there?”

Kakashi had to give it to him. That man’s tone changed completely once he spotted a woman. The dancer in question is wearing a sheer blue top paired with a skirt with an opening on the side. Beneath the transparent material is a top made of a less transparent cloth that covers just enough. She is also wearing tight shorts that do not leave much to the imagination. Hiding a coy smile behind her hand, most likely well aware of who the two ninjas were even before they approached her, she nods to them.

It is not like they could hide their identities that well, either. Jiraiya is well known in this part of the city, and there are only so many young men with grey hair and a mask covering their mouth and eye. Regardless of their clothes — not that Kakashi had not tried, he was even wearing black jeans and a loose black t-shirt for this reconnaissance mission —, they could not go unnoticed.

The woman laughs demurely at something Jiraiya says and begins leading them inside. Kakashi had to admit, had this happened some years ago, he would be thrilled by the prospect of seeing how his favorite author drew inspiration for his works. As it was now, he just wanted this whole ordeal over with. The faster they did it, the better.

“Should we-“ Kakashi begins, though he is soon interrupted.

“Hahahaha, sit there, sit, Kakashi! These things cannot be rushed. Azalea here just told me there is a show beginning shortly. Let’s enjoy!”

With a resigned sigh, he sits. The room is not that large and the half-circle of the stage occupied a good portion of it. If their suspect was in their midst, Kakashi had most certainly already seen their face. If this was the case, the contrary could be said to be true. Even with all the women attending to their respective patron’s every need, Kakashi had made eye contact with a number of people, and not all their eyes had grazed over him unseeing. 

Just having to think that much, his temples had begun to pound, the thick smell of perfume and the various lavish silks already grating on his skin. He wishes then, not for the first time that night, for some easy banter and discussion to pass the time. To bounce off ideas and narrow their suspect list.

At the same time he thought that, he tried desperately not to think about how he only knew one person that managed to make him feel at ease under any and all circumstances.

Kakashi takes a deep breath and settles fully on his seat. He understands why observing first and acting later might be the best course of action in this case. He is in the middle of repeating that to himself for the tenth time when the lights dim. The melody that had been playing changes gradually to soothing and deeper tones, the bass and sax growing more pronounced. 

The curtains on the back of the stage part and, from the small opening shrouded by darkness, appears a leg.

A long. 

Bared.

Toned leg.

It is, undeniably, Sakura’s leg.

How Kakashi knows that with unmistaken certainty? He would not admit at rasengan point. But he does. It is.

Everything falls into the background as Kakashi surges forward on his seat. Million questions shooting in his head, conjectures, theories, some of them involving accidental consumption of aphrodisiacs and wishing for something so bad they come true.

Unaffected by his inner turmoil, the music continues and the leg stretches open fully on the ground before his eyes. Kakashi has spent an absurd amount of time thinking about running his fingers through that leg, spreading them open against the soft skin just like how Sakura insists on applying her moisturizer whenever they share a room for their joint missions.

As if guessing his thoughts, a hand, _her_ hand, surges from Sakura’s thigh, running through her calf to her foot. Both ankle and wrist were adorned with a golden bracelet with little bells. Their tinkling was the only thing louder to Kakashi’s ears than the rapid beating of his heart.

 _What are you doing here?_ he cannot help thinking loudly at the amount of exposed skin. 

Sakura continues moving forward in sensuous, coordinated waves starting from her shoulder until the tip of her fingers. It is a mimicry of their heating-up stretches, it _does_ feel as a prelude to something, though exactly in the way Kakashi had not allowed himself to think about for so long.

Whether Kakashi is ready to embrace the fact that he would never again be able to stretch Sakura platonically or not, the music builds to a crescendo, and the curtains parts even further, revealing what was behind them.

From the pitch-black darkness, Sakura comes crawling out.

And she _is_ crawling.

Kakashi, of all people, can be said to comprehend how sensuous Sakura can be, even when she is not effectively trying to. However, he had never truly understood the depth of that statement before.

Sakura had never… She had never… _done_ that. Flexed her arms just so with the beat of the music as if she was making love to the floor, ran a hand from her shoulders to crotch, and snapped her hips while breathing harder.

The worst thing was, Kakashi had seen Sakura in this light before it all. She had not needed to crawl to a pole and rise up to it using only the strength of her arms. He had been intensely familiar with her body from the hours they spent sparring, the kicking, punching, and screaming. From her steady fingers and grip as she patched up the both of them.

He had seen her in this light during the blessed minutes they stretched one another before and after those sessions. It was stupid that it should make a difference now whether Sakura was hanging upside down with both her legs spread open in a V-shape with the pole in the middle or not.

Maybe it is this, though, that even after years working and training together, Kakashi had never truly seen so much of Sakura’s naked skin at once.

He is not sure he can survive the experience.

Her clothes are no different from the ones the woman who greeted them at the door wore. The only change is that, where Azalea’s sheer robes had been blue, Sakura’s are pink. 

It hides nothing at all. 

Not her taut abdomen. Not her strong legs. Not even her significantly stronger arms. The muscles flex right before Kakashi’s gaze and he sends out a prayer for whichever saint invented the blessed protection masks and eye-patches offer. He knows he is ogling, but he just cannot seem to stop.

That’s not news, though. He never can, when it involves her.

This was becoming a recurrent problem, in fact

Sakura changes position to something Kakashi cannot name, but involves one of her legs bent around the pole and the other fully taut, as if someone had frozen her in the middle of a perfectly shaped kick.

When it came to watching her, Kakashi could not pinpoint what exactly was the source of his obsession. Sometimes it would be during a mission debrief. Sakura would be listening intently, her hair falling in front of her eyes and framing her face, nodding enthusiastically as the details of the mission were relaid to her. Other times, it would be when they coincidentally bumped into each other at the farmer’s market on Sunday, where each of them had been buying organic-based products. 

Sakura gracefully falls to the ground on a seemingly effortless front split. She smiles and winks at the crowd. There is an edge of laughter on her whole countenance that is typical of when she is high on endorphins and Kakashi smiles with her.

In increasingly more common times, however, Kakashi’s eyes would be stuck on her in a situation just like this, when the amount of affection he felt could no longer be suffocated in his chest and would turn into something else, something too close to arousal for his personal comfort, and threaten to burst at the seams.

Slowly, Kakashi’s breathing syncs with the music, the beat reminding him to take in more air, and the sax, to let it out. The bass does not need to remind him of anything. Kakashi is intimately aware of the effects of Sakura’s muscles on him and of how Sakura’s bicep can play on his heartstrings anytime.

Instead, he breathes in time with the way Sakura’s fingers grip at the pole. A cascading rhythmic movement that could be either helping her find or lose purchase. The bones of her hands jut out prominently as she holds her entire weight with them, spinning beautifully while her legs twist around themselves in a manner impossible to track unless Kakashi was able to focus on that single thing which he, admittedly, is not in the moment. 

Kakashi did not even know Sakura could pole dance, for starters.

And this is not just pole dance. It is an incredible and unparalleled display of strength as well, with Sakura going as far as lifting herself horizontally entirely with the support of only one arm. The sight alone makes Kakashi feel his entire body be overcome by a tingling sensation, a dizzying feeling that threatens to take away all his senses. 

Her legs open widely in a fluid motion while she is still spinning and Kakashi tries to not think about how flexible Sakura had become in the past few months. He is still determinedly _not_ thinking about it when her upper leg comes to wrap on the pole over her head and the other follows the same path in the rhythm of the music. With both of them circling the mast, she changes her grip so that her entire back is bent in a C-shape, and lets herself fall, spinning to the ground.

It had not occurred to Kakashi — until it was, in fact, occurring — that he is a physical presence that exists in time and space and, if Sakura remained spinning, their eyes would most definitely eventually meet given how small and sparsely decorated the space was.

Sakura is spinning her wrist inches from the ground when the movement suddenly stops. It is not coordinated with the music and that snaps Kakashi’s attention back to her face.

Their gazes meet.

She arches her eyebrows, eyes widening perceptively, surprise almost making her fall. She recovers quickly enough, though, to coordinate a more elaborate descent.

Kakashi had been sure just a moment prior that he had entered that establishment with a very solid excuse for his presence there, should it be questioned by anyone of importance, but he could not remember for the life of him what it was now. Even as he looks around for something, someone, literally anything, there are no friendly faces. No helpful cues. Everyone is too busy in their own skin, or enjoying his suffering too much to care if he is in dire need of help.

Sakura does not leave her position immediately, but now every three seconds, she turns to look directly at him and maintains the eye contact even as she spreads her legs on the floor and mimics fucking it. And here had Kakashi been foolishly thinking that, perhaps — even though nothing was ever this good to him — he could get away with a life of sharing missions, meals, and sparring sessions with Sakura. That he could be happy living with just these stolen moments. That wanting something he could not have was a privilege better than what he deserved for the things he had done. For the person he was.

Clearly, the universe could smell yearning like Pakkun could smell fear from miles away. He had unknowingly been biding his time for this particular reckoning.

During the time Kakashi spent mourning the future loss of the easy banter he had with Sakura, the reckoning herself had graciously left the stage with light steps and had begun walking towards him at a sedate pace.

“Hey, pretty boy, come here often?” that melodic voice calls out to him.

Kakashi is deeply thankful for the loud music and chatter which drowns the undignified noise he makes at that. “Sakura-“

Sakura, unlike him, appeared to have regained her composure. Her smile is customer service approved and, conscious of the number of eyes watching her, she steps over one of Kakashi’s thighs, drawing herself closer. From this distance, Kakashi can already smell the peach blossom perfume she wears when they are not on a mission. It is the same one Kakashi had gifted on her last birthday.

“I have to say, I have never seen you around these parts,” she sings, nudging his legs close with the heel of her foot. Kakashi does not even consider resisting her ministrations and closes his legs easily, allowing her to slip her foot back on the ground so that she can begin properly straddling him, moving her hips to the beat of the music just over Kakashi’s knees. He could acutely feel every part of his body where they did not touch.

Kakashi could not move. He could barely breathe.

Sakura drapes herself fully over Kakashi’s chest, her mouth moving against his pulse point right beneath his jaw. “Have you come because of the disappearances?”

Kakashi’s breath stutters at “have you come”, which is a bit embarrassing because it is not that further from the truth, at least intellectually. The damage just that move and sentence had dealt, however, was enough to transform the rest of the sentence into some very pleasant static and hot breath over his bare skin.

Trying to slow the beating of his heart to a pace that would not get him admitted at the Konoha City Hospital for a heart attack, Kakashi takes in as much air as his lungs allow, ignoring the smell of Sakura’s bodywash hitting the part in his brain that ached to taste it on her skin. He proceeds to exhale slowly, carefully filing away how the movement of his chest made it press against hers even if only for a millisecond.

He repeats the movement, centering himself back in his own body, which just happened to be sandwiched between Sakura’s firm thighs. Everything was _Fine_. 

The oxygen cleared his mind just enough.

“Was the show a necessary part of the informant’s report?” Kakashi winces right after the words leave his mouth, but Sakura just laughs.

When Sakura laughs, it is with her whole body, an affair Kakashi usually only has the privilege to feel when he has her immobilized beneath him, or the inverse, which was a far more common occurrence these past few days. “Yeah, couldn’t risk leaving the girls alone after last week. Sorry to have bailed on our dinner last Thursday, by the way.”

Kakashi makes a dismissing noise that is too similar to a groan to pass as anything else. Sakura winks at him and moves one of her legs to the same side of the other one, which allows Kakashi to catch a brief glimpse of the underside of her ass. Without stopping for a second, the leg that had been previously on that side moves to the other, and Kakashi is granted the full view of Sakura’s back as she sits directly on his lap, almost no fabric at all between them as she grinds down on him.

Kakashi tries opening his mouth to say something, or perhaps just breathe better, but his lips skim over her bare neck, knocking his breath away. His words are gone, and now Sakura’s medic hands are kneading his thighs. If she felt — which was absurd, because how could she not feel — anything when she sat, or if that bothered her, she did not comment on it. It did not stop her. In fact, if she had felt it, it could be said it had even spurred her on.

“I tipped the ANBU anonymously. I wanted to ask for backup, but I knew they would take me out of the case if they knew.”

Kakashi shifts closer to speak directly beneath Sakura’s ear, his tone deep and private, “So the informant dancer.”

Sakura nods and takes Kakashi’s hands to position them over her waist. She throws her head back until it is resting on Kakashi’s shoulders. When she speaks, her hair hides her mouth to all the other patrons, “You would be surprised with the amount of things that can be seen and heard when people don’t think you are part of a specialized assassination tactical team. Or a ninja for that matter.”

Kakashi does not think he would be that surprised. But then, he had not heard what Sakura had.

His hands shift lower, to Sakura’s thighs, and he begins running them through that length. He thinks Sakura opens her legs wider when Kakashi’s hands slip involuntarily to the inner part of her thighs, though he cannot be sure of it.

He does not draw them back, though.

“I wanted to handle this alone,” she continues, as if she had not just pressed down harder against Kakashi’s hardness and let out a _keen_. “But if I did that, I would blow my cover and this place pays much higher for an hour of pole dance twice a week than ANBU’s hazard pay a month.”

Kakashi nods. For an entity financed directly by the Hokage and which possessed as much risk for the lives of their ninjas as the ANBU did, the salary barely covered his rent. He wondered if that establishment took male dancers. It probably would not be so hard, he was in shape, and he felt he could learn how to pole dance as long as Sakura was the one teaching him. And Jiraiya stopped coming to the club, also.

“Do you have a suspect?”

Sakura nods imperceptibly, just a small shift of her nose and hair on Kakashi’s neck.

Probably afraid Kakashi had not noticed the movement for what it was, Sakura arches her back, letting out a sound Kakashi was afraid to call a whimper, “Yeah…”

He had been trying to ignore it, to meditate in a deeper state than even the sennin to will his erection away, however, Kakashi had to admit he was having trouble compartmentalizing how breathy and close to a moan Sakura’s voice had just sounded. Was she truly faking all of this? Was she that good at it? If not, what did that _mean_??

Sensing something different, Kakashi’s hands return to her hips and, with a bruising grip, he pulls her flush against him, taking care to not accidentally still her rocking which was entirely voluntary on her part. If she stopped though, Kakashi might lose his mind.

He turns his head to hide his mouth on her hair, even though that is the precise purpose of his mask. “Where?”

Sakura does not need to take a look at her surroundings to answer. Though she had been moving all the while, her attention had never drifted away, unlike Kakashi’s. “Dark coat, combat boots. Went to the back with Camelia a minute ago. I can’t go there alone.”

The implication was obvious, not at all because that was precisely the plot of _Icha Icha Authority_ , but because if Sakura _could_ , she would not have bothered to wait longer and call their headquarter for help.

However, the book was well written and researched, and Kakashi would die on that hill.

“Lead the way,” he replies, nuzzling his nose behind her ear. Sakura laughs again, though it is far more strained than her earlier one, getting up in a single fluid motion and extending a hand to him with a smile.

It feels like all of those times she had him pinned to the ground for a while — longer than necessary after he had already yielded —. It feels like coming home after a long day of paperwork, body aching and overwrought. It feels like a warm embrace and a pat on the back for no occasion at all.

Like they were partners, regardless of their mission assignment.

He takes her hand and allows Sakura to pull him up. She wraps an arm around his waist as soon as he is standing close to her, steering him by her touch on his lower back.

Her voice is conspiratorially low when she speaks, “I was hoping they would send you.” 

When Kakashi’s pace slows, she urges him harder with her palm, quickly adding. “I mean, because of the mission. This guy’s a secret and we don’t know his ability so it would be, you know, useful. To have a sharingan user.”

Kakashi changes Sakura’s course subtly with his step, effectively avoiding a passionate couple who go on to stumble against a dancer carrying drinks. “Sasuke is a sharingan user.”

Sakura grimaces. “I wouldn’t invite _Sasuke_ to the back with me.”

Kakashi does not think he manages to hide how particularly smug that sentence makes him feel. Which is of no consequence, it was not Sasuke going to the back with her.

Sakura opens the door of a nondescript room for him, whispering so only he could hear. “Elders first.”

“We are not that far apart in age,” he protests while entering the room. Even though he disagrees with her statement, he cannot resist the strength behind her push. Sakura chokes back a burst of laughter, not truly agreeing with her teasing remark either. She follows him inside and locks the door behind them.

The mood, which had turned lighter as they walked, tensed at once as loud noises of sex filtered through the thin walls.

Sakura motions with her chin to where the sounds are the loudest. Kakashi had suspected as much. He nods and opens his mouth to ask about Sakura’s planned course of action when a loud knock comes from the door, “What are you two doing in there?!”

They had been too quiet.

Thinking fast, Sakura moans the loudest, dirtiest, and most wantonly Kakashi had ever heard anyone moan in his life — granted he had been in a strip club for about half an hour, and at the back for about a minute —. Her whole expression contorts in pleasure, even though there was no need since a lot was bound to be lost when translating to her voice. 

It is effective, nonetheless. Even Kakashi, who _knows_ nothing is happening between the two of them, cannot help thinking _something_ is happening between the two of them.

Still, sex requires two people and Kakashi took too long to react.

Sensing the lack of participation from a fundamental player, the man on the other side of the door does not seem to buy the act. Not waiting for the handle to turn and expose their farse, as soon as Sakura hears the jingling of keys, she shoves Kakashi on the bed.

The attack is unexpected and, so, he does not resist it. Before his instincts kick in, Sakura is already on top of him, straddling his hips. They both hear the handle turn and Sakura moves faster, adrenaline and despair both aiding her task of pulling Kakashi’s mask down — he allows her, there is not much he would not allow her, now —, and taking his lips in her own, kissing him with an inch of his life as the door opens fully behind them.

Paying only half a mind to their guest, Kakashi takes back control of the situation, his mind calming once he can _act_. He breaks the kiss only enough to roll them around the bed, switching their positions so he hovers over Sakura instead of the other way round. Her legs come to wrap tightly around his waist as he lowers himself and kisses her again, trapping her lower lip between both of his as he presses his tongue against it and sucks.

Sakura’s lips are not like her skin, hard from years of training in combat. They yield and bruise easily, delicate like every fiber of her. Kakashi fists a generous amount of Sakura’s hair and kisses her deeper. She surges higher to kiss him back with just as much, if not more, fierceness. Her fingers are clawing Kakashi’s back, removing his eyepatch, pulling him closer to her.

The disobstruction of his eye reminds Kakashi of what they were supposed to be doing there. Of _who_ had just walked in on them. Still, it was hard caring if the man was watching them or not. They had walked around this for so long…

During missions, they would room together, regardless if they had the budget for an extra bedroom or not. They would do absolutely nothing. Kakashi would wear his sweatpants — no shirt —, and Sakura would change to her matching pink pajamas, which were soft and comfortable, too big on her. She would shed away that armor she always wore in front of everyone else and let herself be vulnerable around him. 

Kakashi had not even known she was trying, before. He only realized something fundamental had shifted when he exited his shower to find Sakura sitting cross-legged on the bed, medical book on her lap, chewing on her yellow marker.

Back then, Kakashi had not been able to tell what was different exactly, only that Sakura seemed much more approachable like this. She did not hide her inner voice, complaining loudly at the researchers she did not agree with.

“You cannot just go and feed snails dog food to enhance their metabolism, snails do not _work_ like that. The only thing you will be successful in is creating a new disease, and when you do that, I want to see the effectiveness of the homeopathic medicine you advocate so firmly about, Kashigo-sensei.”

It was her braveness, perhaps, that also allowed Kakashi to be vulnerable near her. It took years of this dynamic between the two of them, but one time he returned from his shower with his sharingan uncovered and mask carefully folded away. Sakura had been talking over the phone with Ino at the time. She had looked like she wanted to stare, but eventually resumed her conversation, asking, “Where was I again?”

Kakashi had not heard much from Ino’s reply, just a “Is it Kakashi again? Are you sleeping with him right now? Sakura, I swear-“ before Sakura hung up on her with queasy laughter.

After this, nights were more peaceful, except the ones they actually had work to do. They would both go lie down early in bed, far earlier than Kakashi was used to. Sakura would be studying an article or another and Kakashi would lay his head on her lap and read Icha Icha’s most recent novel. It was quiet, this companionship they shared.

Sakura would bring him coffee from the place across the headquarters when they had to stay in and finish a report. Kakashi would drop by the medical bay and give her a shoulder massage when she was on call. They would meet on Sundays to do the week’s groceries, and on Thursdays to explore Konoha’s hole-in-the-wall restaurants. When their classes did a reunion, he would go with her and stand by her side when she had to greet Sasuke. On special dates, she would follow him to the cemetery and sit on the grass. After a few hours, she would take a fruit from her basket and begin to peel it, giving Kakashi small pieces to which he thanked with a curt nod.

Kakashi had never imagined the person he could share his life with. As the years passed, he felt more and more there would be no one he could truly open himself with. Being with another person entailed having to take their feelings in consideration, and Kakashi already had too much on his mind, too much to worry about. The burden he carried sometimes made it hard to sleep at night. Hard to breathe. Hard to get up and go teach a class. Do his job.

These things, no matter if he had talked about them with his friends, afflicted him and him alone. Talking helped momentarily. Sharing made the guilt grow and felt several shades of wrong. At night, he slept alone.

Until he did not.

Until he was woken up by Sakura’s gentle hand on his shoulder, urging him up and through a sequence of breathing and distraction exercises. It was unlike the touch of a friend, this much he could tell early on. It was unlike the touch he expected from a lover.

It was the touch from someone who _knew_ him, who cherished him regardless. Who would take his burden and share it with him because they understood, and not because of anything else. Someone who was familiar with how weakness and impotence felt like. Someone who woke up and actively had to choose to be strong every single day.

Kakashi was still imagining who this person he could share his life and troubles with was and he still did not know. And yet, Sakura was sitting right there next to his old friend’s grave, peeling an orange and giving small, biteable pieces to him.

He wanted that. He wanted to wake up by her side and take a minute to watch her steady breathing. He wanted to wake up to Sakura putting on her ANBU attire, putting on her mask. After that first time, no matter how many layers she wore, he could see _her_. Know it was her fighting by his side. And that was enough.

Well, that _had_ been enough.

“Is it him?” He parts from her lips with a final gentle nibble.

While Sakura catches her breath, Kakashi presses a close-mouthed kiss on the corner of her lips, another high on her cheekbones, another one on her jawbone, “Kakashi, I-“ and another one where her neck met her shoulder. From there, he moves up from just below her ear, registering the way she whimpers when he opens his mouth and sucks a mark there.

“Mm?” his voice is more vibration than sound by this point, and he punctuates his question with a small bite at her earlobe.

Sakura rises up to meet him, her chest heaving with the effort. In the midst of her writhing and rubbing, she throws her head back, eyes staring intently at the door.

The closed door.

“Inside,” she whispers, her hands pressing against his chest and cradling his neck, every touch sending sparks that were turning into a steady heat down below.

“Where?” Kakashi asks, already kissing his way lower. Kissing the jut of her collarbones, the thin plateau between her breasts, the pale skin just beneath them, the concave trail leading to her belly button rising up to meet his mouth with every shaky breath.

Sakura tries to laugh, but it comes out as a broken sound. “Below.”

Kakashi hums against the skin of her belly, hands kneading the meat of her hips. “Here?” he asks, eyes locked with hers, though his head remains pressed just above the space between her legs.

Sakura can only groan, pressing Kakashi’s head against her body with her hand. Kakashi laughs against her skin and presses a kiss there. “Finish quick,” he tells her at last and moves back to sit on his chins.

Sakura is still lying down, hair strewn across the mattress. She is a sight. “First and last time, sweetheart.”

Kakashi replies by quickly switching his grip on her hips for a firmer hold and twisting her body around in a quick motion, immediately pushing her down with an open palm between her shoulder blades as Sakura punches through the bed directly at the culprit’s face with her signature “SHANNARO!!”

The man falls on the ground unconscious and with a broken nose without another sound. Kakashi uses that brief moment of respite to recompose from feeling Sakura’s muscles. He does not know why he likes it as much as he does, but he likes being reminded she could crush him anytime. 

Sakura uses her time out to lie down and breathe.

When she speaks next, her eyes are still fixed on the ceiling, “Ino is too loud when she’s home.”

Kakashi understands her line of thinking at once, not at all because he had also been going there, “My house is too quiet.”

The corner of Sakura’s lips curve slightly, her voice betraying her smile, “I promised you a cake last Sunday.”

Kakashi takes a step closer to her. “The ingredients we bought at the farmer’s market are still there.” She finally looks up to him, eyes twinkling.

“I think I lost my job,” she laughs. “I guess I won’t be able to pay my share of the rent anymore.”

Kakashi tries not to seem obviously interested as he offers her a hand, “Does that mean you are free tonight?”

“I’m free on most nights,” she accepts his hand and pulls herself up. “If you ask nicely.”

Kakashi brushes a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. He does not withdraw his hand, “If I lead the way, would you follow?”

Sakura turns her face and gently presses a kiss on his open palm, looking at his eyes all the while. 

“I will be right by your side.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t been in the Naruto fandom for over 4 years already, so please excuse me if I got anything wrong or if anyone is too ooc!
> 
> Title taken from the song “If I Lead” by Kiltro.


End file.
